Obama Administration Defines Cause and Effect

If you want to see the principle of cause and effect in action, look no further than Obamacare. We have a situation where Obamacare is causing employers to reduce their number of full-time employees to part-time to avoid having to provide government-approved health plans or be penalized.

We are now seeing companies that have already converted full-time employees to part-time cutting healthcare benefits altogether and forcing them to buy health insurance through the Obamacare exchanges.

It's hard to escape the irony of this. The administration forces employers to buy government-approved health insurance policies, which causes them to reduce their workforce or work hours, which then creates more part-time workers who no longer are being given health benefits and must purchase them on their own.

Meanwhile, the policies they are purchasing from the exchanges are more expensive with less coverage than what they had from their employer. Worse, they no longer can afford them because they are now part-time workers earning significantly less. What that translates into are higher premiums, less coverage and fewer dollars to buy insurance.

In his State of the Union speech, the president seemed to be distancing himself from his own program. "The American people are not interested in refighting old battles."

In fact they are. They still don't understand Obamacare, and every time they think they have a handle on it, the game changes.

As Alice said about Wonderland: "Curiouser and curiouser."

Target last week announced that 10 percent of its part-time workforce will be kicked out of the company's healthcare insurance plan and be given $500 to try their luck on obtaining coverage through the open market.

"By offering them insurance, we could actually disqualify many of them from being eligible for newly available subsidies that could reduce their overall health insurance expense," explained Jodee Kozlak, executive vice president of human resources at Target.

This is preposterous. Most people agree that healthcare costs under Obamacare are rapidly rising. So to propose that part-time employees will get a better deal by going through the Obamacare exchanges is more sheer fantasy.

While Target isn't the first to make this move — Trader Joe's and Home Depot have also done this — it's a disturbing pattern that is destroying what little dignity part-time employees have. Part-time workers are already five times more likely to live in poverty than full-time employees are.

If we continue our examination of cause and effect relating to Obama's economic policies, we need to look at why we have so many part-time workers in the first place.

Out of the roughly 1 million jobs Obama boasted about creating during 2013, only 23 percent were full-time jobs.

In fact, the number of American adults with full-time jobs has dropped to just 47 percent.

We have created an army of "involuntary part-time workers" — a new phrase that has been added to our lexicon. These are workers who want to work full-time but can only find part-time work. This pool of workers is rapidly growing and is another unintended consequence of Obamacare.

The causes for this imbalance are high taxes, too many regulations, a failed jobs program, lack of support for small business and diminished access to capital.

The effect is an environment of uncertainty has been created, which has killed job creation and resulted in part-time jobs evolving from a first step in getting some work experience to a career destination that only leads to poverty and despair.

Obama's failed policies — especially Obamacare — have set off a series of cause and effects that will make it difficult to reverse this downward spiral.

We will have an opportunity in 2016 for a different cause and effect. Elect a president with enlightened leadership qualities who understands the unique and positive relationship between government and private enterprise.

The effect will be a nation that starts moving in the right direction, and where real full-time jobs will once again be the path to the American Dream.

If you want to see the principle of cause and effect in action, look no further than Obamacare. We have a situation where Obamacare is causing employers to reduce their number of full-time employees to part-time to avoid having to provide government-approved health plans or be penalized.